SOUL TALK

The bomb blasts that gripped Bangalore recently drowned the city in pools of gloom. A hushed, panic-stricken silence fell on the city, known for its hi-fi shopping malls, software parks, pubs and multiplex cinemas. The ‘mainstream’ media had to do its duty of churning out fabricated stories of possible involvement of “Islamic Terrorists” to satiate their appetites. In this sensitive situation, some Muslim organizations in the city got into action and organized seminars and conferences to present their views, and to air their grievances of Muslims being targeted every time a  bomb explodes anywhere across India or the world.

A group of young Muslims in Bangalore organized a conference on Anti-Terrorism just days after the serial bomb blasts in the city. The venue was a very high profile hall in the centre of the city, and so it attracted the attention of the cops. Two sniffer police Labrador dogs were spotted lazily hanging around the premises. One of them was half-dozing! That poor thing was probably dragged out of his sleep to do his job! All this added to the ambience of tight bureaucratic security, making any simple press reporter, including myself and my life partner, feel as if we had landed on a Star Trek Spaceship. With mobile phones beeping all around and everybody around clad in their three-piece business suits, the atmosphere seemed tense.

As I walked through the entrance, a young boy from the group came up to me and asked, ‘Do you have a VIP card?’ What on earth did that mean, I wondered. ‘No’, I spluttered, but handed him my press ID card.  I asked him if I and my spouse could sit together in the Press Gallery or even in the hall, which wore a desolate look.  He took our press cards and disappeared. He surfaced after a while with a grim look on his face. “ Sorry Madam,” he said officiously. ‘ You go to women’s section’. He pointed skywards. Oh! wow! So I could sit in heaven!.

I politely asked him why. A colleague of his, another young man, trotted up and said, ‘This is for your safety and also in Islam, men and women cannot mix together.” I took his answer in the right spirit, but it also baffled me. I am a Muslim, so I know what he was trying to convey. But imagine the same reply, if given to a non-Muslim. Would that not lead to misunderstandings about the very concept of segregation between men and women in Islam? He or she would think that women are not safe in the company of men, so pack them off into a separate section or else they may be kidnapped by other men around!

Since the conference was to protest against terrorism and because people from other communities were also invited, I expected a more cosmopolitan gathering where the issue of terrorism could be discussed in a more open ambience  between people of different communities and religions. But almost all of the few dozens of people I saw at the hall seemed to be Muslims. Was there any point discussing this issue just among Muslims, telling each other how ‘good’ and ‘noble’ we are, and lamenting about how everybody else is targeting us? It turns into a kitty party on anti-terrorism. The need of the hour is to convey this message to non-Muslims, people in the government, bureaucrats in the government and reporters from the mainstream media. It is such people that such conferences need to reach out to.

More than anything else, the style in which we approach people makes an immense difference. Self-righteousness, of the sort I felt at this conference, can only make non-Muslims flee. We must shed the know-all, smug self-righteous approach and open our hearts to listen to and learn from others in order to have a free dialogue on the serious issue of anti-terrorism with other communities if we really want bridges of harmony to be built in this country and the world.